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Screen Magnifiers Page

Screen magnifiers can be used to enlarge to size of elements on a web page so that a visually impaired user can view the page more easily. The Microsoft Windows operating system has a built in screen magnifier amongst it’s accessibility features that users can use to enlarge the size of the page. There are also a number of screen magnifier software packages available, information about these is given below.

ZoomText

ZoomText was created by an accessibility company called AI Squared. ZoomText is capable of magnifying the screen up to 16 times bigger than its normal size and is able to easily smooth fonts and colours. It also contains a number of different window types that enable a visually impaired user to view the screen. The software also makes it easy for a visually impaired user to adjust the position of the screen at any time.

A visually impaired user can also use ZoomText to adjust the colours and contrast of the screen. If a visually impaired user is using a mouse then ZoomText has a pointer enhancer that allows the user to increase the size or colour of the mouse pointer, so that they are able to see it more easily on the screen. A similar feature is available for the text cursor. The web finder feature allows a visually impaired user to easily locate links and other elements on a web page.

Zoomtext can also be used as a screen reader providing speech output of web pages. More information about ZoomText can be found on the AI Squared website. The site also contains a free ZoomText Demo.

Artic Magnum Deluxe

The Artic Magnum Deluxe screen magnifier was created by Artic Technologies. It contains the following accessibility features:

• Designed to work with WinVision Screen Access.
• Enlarges Text in Windows from 1 to 32 times in size.
• Enlarges Text in DOS from 1 to 8 times in size (16 times in size vertically).
• Smooth automatic screen feed.
• Color reversing.
• Auto bar tracking.

More information about the Artic Magnum Deluxe screen magnifier can be found on the Artic Technologies website.

Magic

The Magic screen magnifier was created by Freedom Scientific It is a combined screen magnifier and screen reader. It is designed to allow visually impaired users to see the screen while listening to the speech output given by the screen reader. It can magnify the size of the screen up to 16 times the original size. It contains the following accessibility features:

• Allows the user to change the size and colour of mouse pointers and text cursors.
• Allows the user to change the colours and contract of the screen.
• Allows the users to choose from several magnified views.
• Allows the users to easily changed the magnified area of the screen via the keyboard.
• Works as a screen reader and therefore can provide speech output for web pages and other applications.
• Allows a user to control elements of the text such as size and colour.
• User can control voice and word-rate of the screen reader.
• Magic is fully compatible with the Jaws screen reader.

More information about the Magic screen reader can be found on the Freedom Scientific website.

Lunar and Lunar Plus Screen Magnifiers

The Lunar and Lunar Plus screen magnifiers were created by the Dolphin Computer Access Company. The Lunar screen magnifier is a screen magnifier alone, while the Lunar plus screen magnifier provides screen magnification facilities as well as speech output for web pages. The Lunar screen magnifier contains the following accessibility features:

• Can magnify the size of the screen to 32 times its original size.
• Magnified text is smooth and clear.
• User can choose from 20 high contrast colour schemes or build their own.
• User can replace problem colours anywhere on screen.
• Has high visibility mouse pointers.
• Contains smooth scrolling for browsing long documents.
• Contains a wide choice of screen magnification styles.
• Assists users when they are browsing the web by providing a list of links , headings or frames.
• Contains keyboard shortcuts for easy operation.
Meanwhile the Lunar Plus screen magnifier contains the following additional accessibility features:
• Provides speech output for web pages.
• The user has a choice of software speech synthesisers including Dolphin Orpheus (multilingual) and Microsoft Text-to-Speech.
• The user has a choice of nine voices or they can create their own.
• The user has a choice of languages, including: English (UK) and USA), Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish (Latin and Castilian) and Swedish.
• It is compatible with many other hardware and software synthesisers.

More information about the Lunar and Lunar Plus screen magnifiers can be found on the Dolphin Software website. A free domo of the Lunar or Lunar Plus screen magnifier can also be downloaded from the Dolphin website.

Microsoft Magnifier

Microsoft Magnifier is a basic magnification tool, which shows the magnified area of the screen. Unlike many screen magnifiers MS Magnifier is not able to carry out font smoothing but it can still magnify up to 9 times the original size. MS Magnifier is also able to track mouse and keyboard action. There is also an option to invert the colours of the magnified view as well as the option to quickly switch to a high contrast theme.